I know I haven't been posting again but today I was riding with LaMont in Virginia and we passed a church, it had a white steeple, and I had a flashback as a child watching dad's slides in the living room in the house on Smelter Street. Dad had a slide of a church he worked on and there were slides of them putting up the steeple. That was when I learned what a steeple was and that they were on churches. I remembered being so facinated and begging dad to let me go with him to see him put up another one. He did actually take me with him one day, I am thinking in Sandy but I don't remember for sure, but that was when my love for hanging out at job sites began. To this day I love to watch construction. When my children were small I would always take them to LaMont's various job sites, we would have lunch and visit for a while. Fun times for us.

Isn't it funny how something triggers a memory? And that triggers more and more memories. That was one of those memories that made me feel warm and fuzzy. I could picture everything so vividly and I started to remember other things as well. Dad always let me hang out at his jobs, mainly I remember Moroni. Lots of summers we would travel to Moroni. We stayed in a house that belonged to Edna Larson. No in door plumbing and mom cooked on an old coal stove. She cooked too, made home made bread even. Isn't it amazing they could control the temperature for beautiful baked goods.

I loved to go to Moroni I met a girl Susan Christensen, she was so cute and fun. Shes took me on my first "pea" raid. We could play outside til way late, in fact that was when the fun began. We played games, hide and seek, no bears are out tonight, red rover red rover send ??? right over, mother may I and kick the can. We always played one potato, two potato three potato four, or eeney meeney minee moe catch a tiger by the toe, to see who was first. I shouldn't tell you but actually when i was little, we said eeney meeney minee moe catch a niger by the toe. Can you imagine if that was said today? Sometimes even the bigger sisters would play, Anna and Kathryn, never Marian or Arlene.

When we traveled to Moroni it took about 2 1/2 hours back then all the way down State Street, no freeway. Dad would always ask who knew all the towns we traveled through, he would say "I'll give a nickel to the first one to name the next town we are going to go through," the only one I usually got was Salem, I don,t remember which town it follows now but I did. If you sat by dad he always played, tickle tickle on the knee if you laugh you don't love me. I tried so hard not to laugh. His other thing he did was to tell us we were lost, then he would say we will just have to go where the car took us.

Those were fun carefree days I cherish.

Thanks for reading.

I have been gone for a while but not lost. Life just gets to complicated at times and we find ourselves not making or taking time for things we are committed to. I am committed to this blog and I feel bad I stopped on Arlene, it is actually started and it isn't as though I am at a loss for what to say about her, as with all of my brothers and sisters there is much to say.

I think that I will actually talk about me for a bit. I keep having memories pop up in my mind about family and growing up in a large family. Can I just say that lately I feel like I am so lucky to have the family I do. I was a brat growing up, you know the one that gets into things, other peoples things, and made messes, but I think my most paralysing characteristic was procrastination. Guess what it still is. My sisters see me now as the one who knows how to have a good time,guess why? I put off what I should be doing. Can I just say they have forgiven my childhood transgressions more than I have. Now, although I would like to be remembered for more than the one who knows how to have a good time, it is better than some things I could be remembered for.

Steven Covey in his 7 Habits, says "think about what you would like to be said about you at your funeral and go from there to make it happen". I love that, but could never quite put it to practice. I am not sure what I would like said, I seem to change my mind often. I know I try to find the good qualities in people and use that as an example for me to use in my life. Like when I moved to South Jordan, my neighbor Carol Orme acted like I was doing her a favor when I asked her to tend, or help me out in any way. I was so impressed because when I was asked by someone to help I would go over in my mind what I had going on and if it would work. I followed her example and started saying sure I can do that and then made it work. That made me feel like I was really helping them. I will think about more examples as time goes on. For now I will talk about my brothers and sisters.

When it comes to my family one trait that comes to mind for each member is their kind hearts and willingness to share all they have. My heart aches for people who have no one to go to in times of need, or just someone to make them feel better about themselves. I recently had a talk with my grandchildren and I told them that when I am sad or scared, I go to people I know love me no matter what and that is my brothers and sisters. Maybe it is age or maturity but they have come to accept each other for what they are, not perfect, not all knowing, but loving. So that is something I will work on making them feel loved by me. I want to be that person they want to be around when they are down or sick. I want to give back to them what they have given me.

I think I will post this even though it is only a start so you know I am alive and well and full of love for you all. My husband is trying to go to sleep and I am keeping him awake so I will write some of those memories I was talking about tomorrow.